The sketchbook never empties, not all ideas manage to get out. But some will. This page further explores the connections and/or disparities between sign and index. An odd statement perhaps, as we think of them as different; hence the different names.
So after stating the obvious and at the same time the incongruence. Let me explain. It seems to me that if associations can be attached or attributed to both signs and index, then both could be used interchangeably or perhaps interdependently. The Simulacrum project is moving towards a combination of photo screen and cut masking. Some part finished pieces.
I recall reading about the work of Ian McKeever and his use of the combination of photographs along with painting. He talked about the use of different information. I guess something from that earlier influence has continued to be of interest to me as a concept, though redefined and very different work. Collage and print feather strongly in the Simulacrum project.
Combinations of different kinds are coming up all the time in my ideas. Ideas about hybrid combinations of print and painting have been with me for a while now? But I think I have enough for this project without taking those ideas any further. It may be a while yet to my return to paint.
From those early days as a student I also remember some good advise from my tutor about using a sketchbook. He said leave something to resolve in the artwork, don’t resolve everything in the book. My sketchbooks are still quite fractured with snippets of ideas, tests and reflections, even though there is a gradual progression of clarity. The ‘News-stand’ (working title) newspaper image pictured here is a mock-up that will need developing when i start printing again. I have several pieces of work in progress at the moment awaiting resolve and final decisions when I return to the print room.
I have been reflecting back also because I come across Italo Calvino’s Memos for the next millennium again, which I first came across at art school. Always interested in how language and representation works. Calvino talked about Quickness as a trait he valued in literature, defined as a limiting of description to allow the reader to engage in making up aspects of the narrative. That seems still in my thoughts as I build up the allegories in the collage prints. He talked about limited description along with an object that was a protagonist. That word sparks my imagination. . . . Hmm. Another project perhaps.
Protagonist is a word used in discussion by a friend at a recent exhibition opening. That of Robert Priseman, the exhibition now on at the Waterfront Gallery, preceding my exhibition. He has made some very interesting work about a series of shootings, which are remarkably approachable. Is this case the protagonist is perpetrator. This was a coincidence as was right in the middle of thinking about Calvino’s Quickness in relation to the work on show as this painter limits what he depicts from the subject matter. I had the chance to talk to the artist about how he developed the pictures, and he said that they were pieced together from many fragments to complete the images.
Interesting, and very different to my work, but it is really interesting to see how representation works and engages the viewer. And how it works differently in different work with different content and ideas. Priseman takes the subject reduces information but keeps the content intact. The Simulacrum is about an allegory that alters and/or ‘misreads’ the original content.
I seem to be stepping in from point to point here, rather like the Simulacrum series as each successive piece links to the previous.
That’s enough for now.
